Nazi Policy Towards the Jews & the Path to Genocide, 1939–1941 (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The outbreak of the Second World War had terrible and immediate consequences for millions of Jewish people in Europe

  • When the Nazis invaded Poland, the invasion brought around 1.5 million Jewish people under Nazi control

  • The Nazis deported millions of the Jewish people who lived there into ghettos

  • Conditions in these overcrowded and walled-in districts were appalling, and millions died from disease, starvation and exhaustion

• When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, they created special groups known as Einsatzgruppen to identify and murder Jewish populations as their armies moved east

  • It is estimated that the Einsatzgruppen murdered around 1.3 million Jewish people in the Soviet Union

The impact of the war against Poland

• The Nazi invasion of Poland took place on 1st September 1939

  • It caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany and signalled the start of the Second World War

• The start of the war also signalled the start of more severe treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis

  • The Nazis no longer attempted to bully the Jewish populations they controlled into migrating but instead began to deport and resettle them

Ghettos and deportations

• The first policy that the Nazis introduced in response to taking control of millions of Jewish people in Poland was the establishment of ghettos

  • Ghettos were walled-off districts within cities to which Jewish people from surrounding areas were forcibly deported

  • High walls and barbed wire surrounded them, and anyone caught trying to escape was shot dead

  • Ghettos were established in the Polish cities of Lodz (sealed in February 1940), Warsaw (sealed in November 1940) Cracow and Lviv

  • Ghettos were also created in Vilnius in Lithuania

• Ghettos were filthy and overcrowded, with several families being forced to share single rooms

  • The populations of ghettos were forced to undertake hard physical labour

  • The Nazis limited access to medical supplies, food, clean water and heating

• The consequences of these conditions were around half a million deaths of Jewish people in ghettos

  • Many died from exhaustion and starvation whilst others died from diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid that spread rapidly

"The problem we face in September 1939 is how to find bread. After standing in line in vain for five hours at bakeries and confectionery stores, we returned home with two heads of cabbage, each costing one zloty. Bread is not the only thing which is lacking… We stand and wait in line despite the bombardments, because a place in the line is as precious as life itself."

An extract from a diary entry by a Jewish woman, Mira Zabludowski, on 18 September 1939. She kept it during the first months of occupation in Warsaw

The Einsatzgruppen

• The Einsatzgruppen (Special Groups) were established after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941

  • These were controlled by the SS but were made up of men from the police, SD and Gestapo

  • Local officials and police in invaded areas also supported the Einsatzgruppen

  • They followed behind the front-line troops, and their role was to identify and eliminate groups within the civilian populations of newly occupied land

  • These groups included communist party officials and Jewish populations

• Once identified, the people from these groups were shot and buried in mass graves

  • It is estimated that the Einsatzgruppen killed 1.3 million Soviet Jewish people

• Note: The extract below is written by Landau an Einsatzgruppen perpetrator. It has a matter-of-fact tone showing that killings were normalised.

 We went along a country road for a kilometre, and then turned off right into a wood. Presently there were only six of us, and we looked for a suitable spot for the shooting and burial. After a while we found one. The condemned were given shovels in order to dig their own grave. Two of them were crying. The rest certainly had extraordinary courage. What must have been going on at that moment in their heads? I believe that each of them had a small hope that somehow they would not be shot. The condemned were deployed in three shifts because there were not enough shovels available. Curiously, absolutely nothing disturbed me. No pity, nothing […] Slowly the hole grew bigger; two wept incessantly. I let them go on digging, for then they would not think so much. In fact, they grew quieter while working. Their valuables, watches, and money were piled up together. After they had all been lined up together in a clearing, the two women were taken to the edge of the grave to be shot.Six of us had to shoot them, divided so that three of us aimed at the heart and three at the head. I took the heart.

An extract from a diary entry by Felix Landau, July 12, 1941. Landau was a member of the Einsatzgruppen, and this diary entry refers to the murders of twenty-three people in Drohobycz in modern-day Poland. 

The treatment of Jewish people in the early years of war

• The outbreak of war in 1939 led to even more restrictions for the Jewish people still living in Germany

  • Jewish people were banned from owning radios

  • They were excluded from rationing schemes and the usual allowance of food and clothing

  • From 1941, they were only allowed to travel with a police permit

  • From September 1941, all German Jewish people had to wear a yellow Star of David stitched onto their clothes

How far did war radicalise Nazi racial policy?

• Hitler's decision to invade Eastern Europe brought millions of Jewish people under Nazi control

  • This led to the introduction of increasingly radical and murderous policies in response

• Some historians argue that this was always the intention of the Nazis and this mass murder was a deliberate plan

  • They argue that the genocide was consistent with Nazi policies and Hitler's speeches

  • They believe that mass murder fits with the increasing levels of persecution suffered by Jewish people throughout the 1930s and 1940s

  • This is known as the 'intentionalist interpretation'

• Other historians argue that the Nazi genocide gradually developed due to events and was not planned from the beginning

  • They point to the early Nazi policies that were designed to force Jewish people to emigrate

  • They believe that the genocide occurred due to wartime circumstances

  • This is known as the 'functionalist interpretation'